


Älfr Er Älfrs Lífs Ebrithil

by BeastOfTheSea



Category: Inheritance Cycle - Christopher Paolini
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Sacrifice, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 10:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeastOfTheSea/pseuds/BeastOfTheSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In death, his life was at last his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Älfr Er Älfrs Lífs Ebrithil

**Author's Note:**

> **Title Translation** : It _should_ be “He is his life’s master”, though I might have botched the Ancient Language translation. (I wanted to say “He is his own”, but couldn’t find the appropriate AL grammatical construction.)  
>  **Author’s Note** : This doesn’t quite fit with post-Brisingr canon, though I suppose a creative reader could hand-wave and say those… dragon-spirit-orb things are covered under some vague descriptions. (And I have not the slightest idea what happened in Inheritance, so it probably completely contradicts the events in that book. Oh well.)
> 
> It also contains a bit of Eragon-and-Varden-bashing, but to be fair, it is from Murtagh’s point of view. Those finding the bashing unfair can put it down to his bitterness or (again, getting creative) warping by Galbatorix.

Murtagh slumped back against the wall, breathing weakly in his pain as his guts spilled out through the gash gaping in his abdomen. In the back of his mind, he could hear Galbatorix screaming, and the mindless dying screeches of Shurkian; _I’m sorry, Thorn_ , he thought, closing his eyes.

Energy for energy: that was what the rules of the Ancient Language commanded. No one could make something from nothing, no matter how hard they tried. In order to bring down the webs of enchantment that had kept Galbatorix in power for a century, an offering of great might had to  be made, so that the intricate strands of corruption could be burned away like the cobwebs they were – but who would be the offering? As the saying went, who would bell the cat?

Not the elves, no – they couldn’t if they had tried. That was their secret, the truth they had been keeping from their little farmboy apprentice: when the Riders had fallen, their magic had gone with it. Their little cosmetics projects required a great deal of finesse, true, but only a tiny bit of power, if a magician knew how to work the spells. Fine-scale things, beautiful finery in magic – but, like a glass-blower’s masterpiece, they could be shattered with a single blow of a gauntleted fist… or rather, the magical equivalent thereof. And Galbatorix, as a twisted mockery of a Rider, could bring down a castle’s worth of magic upon the head of a foe.

Eragon… perfect little Eragon, secret son of the Varden’s great hero, first new Rider in a century, apprentice to elves… Oh, no, no one could expect him to sacrifice _him_ self, could they? Murtagh, his head falling against his shoulder, let out a pained wheeze that, under better circumstances, would have been a laugh. No, Eragon _couldn’t_ die, that wasn’t how these stories went. Only the tall, dark, and tragic types did that, the foul traitors, the second-in-commands of the villains, whom the hero slew bravely after a dramatic exchange of slashes and parries with shoddy wooden props, and kicked their corpses on his way offstage -to the next scene. And because of that, Eragon would never think of sacrificing himself, because he was as infatuated with the Proper Order of Things as much as any dreamy, empty-headed young noblewoman at Galbatorix’s court. And… heh… neither would anyone think about doing the job _for_ him…

With that said… The only thing with enough power to destroy what a man – less of a man and more of a _thing_ at this point, really – who had once been and now was a mockery of a Dragon Rider had created… was a Dragon Rider. With the third egg remaining without a Rider, and Oromis dead… that left him.

He cracked open one eye, feeling light-headed as blood ran warmly from the wound in a sheet, and saw Zar’roc lying on the floor several handspans away, its blade a richer, thicker crimson than mere metal, no matter how strange its origins or how arcane its forging, could ever shine. He hadn’t had to do it. He could have bent the knee to Galbatorix for once and for all, and let the Varden and the dwarves and the elves and their precious Rider charge into the fortress of the foe, bards likely already trailing behind and composing ballads of their glory…

The bards would have needed all their talents with words to describe the waking nightmares that would have followed. He lacked such a talent; “waking nightmares” was a paltry phrase to describe what would have occurred. Nightmares could jolt awake a dreamer, and some foul phantasms never quite showed their true forms before the sleeper woke. Neither would have been true of the fates that had awaited the rebels.

Had he done it for them, though? No – Eragon, in all his blind, fiery self-righteousness, would have declared that Murtagh had deserved it had the same fate befallen him, and the Varden would have fallen into formation behind him in condemning the filthy traitor, voluntary or no, Morzan’s son, child of a polluted bloodline. Even Nausada, most likely. No one would have mourned him…

But it would have not ended there; Galbatorix, or perhaps the spirits from which he derived his might – or perhaps there was no difference, any more – craved ever more power, and he would make of Alagaësia, and then the lands beyond, an altar to the law of energy for energy, life for magic, upon which he would sacrifice every living thing and everything that contained the least amount of power – gemstones, herbs, and all the creations of the elves breaking and crumbling to dust – until even the streams stopped flowing, and the winds stopped blowing, and sunlight no longer touched ground, all devoured by the madness of one thing that had once been a man. All that would be left would be a still parody of a world, and then mayhap not even that, if the godlike abomination that remained as the only free-willed living being in existence bent reality until it perceived the true name of the Ancient Language, and then devoured that, too.

Perhaps even Galbatorix did not realize that would be what would have followed; perhaps whatever trace of humanity remained in him forced him to avert his mind from the truth. But Murtagh had heard him rave and beheld his rituals, and he had looked down the long, dark road upon which his master had trod, and seen that it grew steeper and darker still.

The choice had been his, and not much of a choice had it been at all; even so, it had still been a choice. He could have retreated into madness and cowardice, as had so many of the Forsworn; he could have begged pity and mercy from himself, insisting that the vows to which Galbatorix had bound him made it impossible for him to rebel, and turned inwards, praying to whatever chose to listen that he would not be made to watch.

But, for once… it was his choice. The opportunity to decide who he became had been in his hands. Not Morzan’s son, or the Red Rider, or Galbatorix’s second-in-command… Just whom he decided to be.

And so he had planned, and prepared, and – it had worked. Despite his vows, he had succeeded. How, he knew not – perhaps he had unwittingly stumbled into a loophole in the vows, or perhaps the vows that had bound the true name of a man no longer bound the true name of the person the man had become. It mattered little, though; what mattered was that it had worked, and he died his own man.

Murtagh smiled, the din of battle outside, Galbatorix’s now-impotent screeching, and Shurikan’s final gurgles all fading, and closed his eyes.

Despite the pain, and the final horrible feeling of loss as the sacrificial ritual tore the last scrap of power from his body, he died at peace.

 


End file.
